Dusting Quotes

She didn't see me because of the reflection on the store windows, and she wouldn't know me in this car anyway. In fact, she probably wouldn't know me with shaggy hair and the beginnings of a beard. So I sat for a minute, watching her dusting bookshelves, either talking to herself or singing. Her feather duster had become a prop in whatever scene she had going.
She looked heart-stoppingly, breathtakingly beautiful, my Meg. ~ Laura Anderson Kurk

As she searched, she looked down at the fallen architecture and read the names graffitied on its sides. Gracus loves Lucinda. Ethan loves Sarah. Michael loves Erin. For what seemed like days she ran her fingers over the names carved into the fragmented bones of ruined loves, stepping around the broken pillars of unkept vows and dusting headstones in the graveyard of love with her hands. Every kind of death had a resting place in the dry lands.
She walked until her feet bled. ~ Josephine Angelini

There was dusting and sweeping to do, books to be put away. Lovely books. It didn't matter to Dick if they were serious leather-bound tomes or paperbacks with garish covers. He loved them all, for they were filled with words, and words were magic to this hob. Wise and clever humans had used some marvelous spell to imbue each book with every kind of story and character you could imagine, and many you couldn't. If you knew the key to unlock the words, you could experience them all - Pixel Pixies ~ Charles De Lint

The language of distinction ceases to be available; is no longer available. We must search CD Rom for meanings which once were clear, but now are obscure. The words are too big for the narrow column of the contemporary newspaper. We are all one-syllable people now, two at most. So we mumble and stumble into our futures. But it is still our task and our reward to scavenge through the universe , picking up the detritus of lost concepts, dusting them down, making them shine. Latin was the best polishing cloth of all, but we threw it away. ~ Fay Weldon

Vas dragged me over to Akos, so we knelt across from each other, barely an arm's length of space between us.
"I'm sorry" was all I could think to say to him. That he was here was my fault, after all. If I hadn't fallen in with the renegades…but it was too late for thoughts like that.
Everything inside me slowed as his eyes met mine, like I had stopped him. I looked him over carefully, like a caress, his tousled brown hair, the dusting of freckles on his nose, and his gray eyes, unguarded for the first time I could remember. I didn't see the bruises or the blood that marked him. I listened to his breaths. I had heard them in my ear just after I kissed him, every exhale bursting a little, like he didn't want to let it go.
"I always thought my fate meant I would die a traitor to my country." Akos's voice was rough, like he had worn away at it by screaming. "But you made it so I won't. ~ Veronica Roth

The library door is already open when I dash in, but the room is empty. Books line shelves three floors high, and windows just as tall let in rays of dying sunlight. Three balconies wrap above me and a grand piano stands in the center of the bottom level, but there are no people, not even a servant dusting old books in a corner. ~ Sara Raasch

Sometimes you buy a book, powerfully drawn to it, but then it just sits on the shelf. Maybe you flick through it, the ghost of your original purpose at your elbow, but it's not so much rereading as re-dusting. Then one day you pick it up, take notice of the contents; your inner life realigns. ~ Hilary Mantel

If Livingston won her, he'd keep Elizabeth in a cage like a gilded bird and never let her blossom into the vibrant person she really was. Nick shook his head in disbelief. How could that man want to clip her wings? Elizabeth had glowed with pride at her achievement. Her blue eyes had sparkled with pleasure. Beneath the dusting of flour, her cheeks had been pink. For the first time she'd been totally relaxed with him. Despite her disheveled appearance, Nick had never seen her look happier, nor more beautiful. ~ Debra Holland

On the main street of one village she passed a vast house, pillared and walled, with shutters over the windows and a pair of stone lions guarding the steps, and she thought that perhaps she might live there, dusting the lions each morning and patting their heads good night. ~ Shirley Jackson

Unless companies change these rules, any superficial re-organizations they perform will be no more effective than dusting the furniture in Pompeii. ~ Michael Martin Hammer

Liv STOP moving! Liv froze. "What is it?" Liv whispered from her prone position. She was maybe fifteen feet from the entrance. Particles of dirt fell from above, dusting her hair and eyes. I don't know, there's something beneath you, something moving. ~ Sarah Dale

His jeans were zipped but unbuttoned, and they hung indecently low - like, so low, they had to be held up by alien superpowers. He had those muscles on either side of his hips, the kind that formed indents. I didn't even know what they were called, but boy, oh boy, did he ever have them. There was a faint dusting of hair that disappeared below the jeans. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Thank you for undusting my true colors; or color: black... Oh, how I missed the darkness! ~ Ahmed Mostafa

She opened her eyes once again and let them drift across the scene laid out before her like a page from a storybook. Inky blackness hung above them as though painted in impasto in an opaque Prussian Blue. The impression it gave was of a sky hand-crafted out of felt with a pearl of a moon and a generous dusting of diamonds sprinkled on for the stars. A night dreams were made of. ~ Ella J. Fraser

When Sebastian, cearly delighted to be treated like one of the guys, didn't move, Alex bared his teeth. "Depeche-toi!"
Sebastian depeched. Alex turned back, all Cheshire cat smile.
"No," I said.
"No what?"
"No,you are not going to teach me all the cool words so I can go to Chamonix and be conversational."
"Good." He leaned in so I could see the faint dusting of freckles on his nose and smell spearmint gum. "Chamonix is so 1990s. Everyone who is anyone goes to Courchevel these days."
I turned on my heel and started to walk off.
"Jeez. Ella." He loped after me. "What if your problem? Conversational, my ass. Talking to you is like dancing around a fire in paper shoes."
I stopped. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"It's an expression my Ukranian babushka likes. I'll explain it at our first turtoring session."
I scowled at his shirt. This one had what looked like a guy riding a dolphin instead of the ubiquitos alligator or polo player. "There isn't going to be a tutoring session."
"Winslow seems to think otherwise."
"Wouldn't be the first thing she's wrong about," I muttered.
He gave an impressive sigh. The dolphin lurched, but the little guy on it held tight. "You don't want to fail French, do you? That would be a serious admission of weakness from an Italian girl."
I almost smiled. Instead, I announced. "Fuhgeddaboudit. I'll buy a 'Teach Your Poodle French in Ten Easy Lessons' online. Problem solved, and Winslo ~ Melissa Jensen

As they passed the rows of houses they saw through the open doors that men were sweeping and dusting and washing dishes, while the women sat around in groups, gossiping and laughing.
What has happened?' the Scarecrow asked a sad-looking man with a bushy beard, who wore an apron and was wheeling a baby carriage along the sidewalk.
Why, we've had a revolution, your Majesty
as you ought to know very well,' replied the man; 'and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. I'm glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man in the Emerald City.'
Hm!' said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. 'If it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily?'
I really do not know,' replied the man, with a deep sigh. 'Perhaps the women are made of cast-iron. ~ L. Frank Baum

My arm reaches up. I don't know if I'm reaching for the pipe or for him. I want to touch his skin. I want to breathe in what he breathes. The yellow swirl. I want to be the yellow swirl. I want him to breathe me in, be sent riding on oxygen molecules deep into lungs. I want to travel through his body, seeing what makes him happy, attaching myself to whatever place in him sparks to life on my arrival. His blood. His tissues. His muscles. I want to burrow inside the folds like a wind-blown dusting of snow so that each time I melt away, he seeks me out again. There's no delineation between the pipe and the smoke and his body. It's all whole, I want in. I want him.
'Please,' I say softly, 'let me try.'
Without letting go of the pipe, he swings his hand holding the lighter with incredible force, backhanding my face. My jaw pops. The lighter swings back under the pipe undulating back and forth, inhaling the curl as it rises from the tar, exactly the same as before he hit me, only now he's staring at me, hating me. ~ Josh Kilmer-Purcell

As they stepped away, Beckett nodded toward Blake's bandaged arm. "What'd ya get?"
"It says 'Sorry,'" Blake said as he went out the door to Cole's private quarters, leaving his brothers alone.
Beckett dialed his cell phone and spoke to Cole while it rang. "What time's good for you?"
Cole sighed. "Around one-thirty today would work."
"Chaos!" Beckett yelled into the phone. "Fit me and my brother into your busy fucking schedule of dusting lawn gnomes and staring out that dirty shed window. We'll be there at one-thirty. ~ Debra Anastasia

We could make a meal
of what's left in this box:
potato, onion, rind of cheese,
elderly egg. We could make
another baby without much
fear, at our age. Name her
Rosa and set her in the yard
with us, pulling weeds,
listening to the birds dusting
their wings in the drive. We
could instead just hold each other
here in the cold house,
and say enough, enough. ~ Rachel Contreni Flynn

Maybe that's where it started and they brought it back from the desert, some kind of contagious psychic wound, guilt based. Maybe it's the dark matter, invisibly making up most of the universe. Maybe it was methane thawing at the bottom of the sea, releasing some ancient spore from the melted icebergs. Maybe it was the hole in the ozone, the collapse of the upper atmosphere. Maybe it was the overload of information, the swarms of data generated by every human gesture. Maybe it was the networking craze, the resurrection of dead friendships and memories meant to be lost, now resurfacing like rusted shipwrecks to reclaim our attention and scramble our sense of time. Maybe it was the death of an artist at the hands of a zealot. Maybe it was the particles made to collide. Maybe the mapping of the genome. Maybe the clashing of gods, the tug-of-war over our souls, not one of them refusing to let go, instead opting to see us sliced in two by Soloman's sword. Maybe it was food becoming a prop for food. Maybe it was a distant comet dusting us with its tail of poisoned ice. Maybe it was someone uttering a combination of syllables that should never be uttered. Maybe it was the emergence of collective intelligence, the flattening of the world. Maybe the game we inhabit had a glitch. Maybe the angel's horn had finally been blown. ~ Kenneth Calhoun

Once, on a walk by a river- Eskdale in low reddish sunlight, with a dusting of snow- his daughter quoted to him an opening verse by her favourite poet. Apparently, not many young women loved Phillip Larkin the way she did. 'If I were to construct a religion/ I should make use of water.' She said she liked the laconic use of 'called in'- as if he would be, as if anyone ever is. They stopped to drink coffee from a flask, and Perowne, tracing a line of lichen with a finger, said that if he ever got the call, he'd make us of evolution. What better creation myth? An unimaginable sweep of time, numberless generations spawning by infinitesimal steps complex living beauty out of inert matter, driven on by the blind furies of random mutation, natural selection and environmental change, with the tragedy of forms continually dying, and lately the wonder of minds emerging and with them morality, love, art, cities- and the unprecedented bonus of this story happening to be demonstrably true. ~ Ian McEwan

The morning sun danced on her hair, transforming the brown to gold and reddish glints. An errant sunbeam angled over her face, dusting her long lashes with light, accentuating the perfection of her nose, her cheekbones, and the beauty of her complexion. ~ Karen Ranney

If anyone poisoned your drink, I'm not to blame." She bared her teeth. "This time." A hard swat on her shoulder made her jerk away. Cinnia glared at her, a blush dusting her cheekbones. "Lou, stop being so rude!" She offered a conciliatory smile to Ambrose. "My apologies, Ambrose. She's always been a scold in the morning." He huffed and raised his tankard in mock toast to Louvaen. "You must live a life of eternal morning. ~ Grace Draven

Politicians have a lot to deal with these days. It's a different world. You know who I feel bad for? Arab Americans who truly want to get into crop dusting. Could be their life long dream,
and every time they ask for a pamphlet, all hell breaks loose. ~ Brian Regan

You've been hiding yourself, and you're good at it. A master of camouflage."
She laughed. "Camouflage?"
"That's the only possible explanation. You've made a frock from the same silk covering the drawing room walls, trimmed it with cat hair and feathers. Then when gentlemen visit, you stand still and blend in."
"You have a surprisingly vivid imagination."
"What I have is experience." He stopped in the road and turned to face her. "I've built a fortune by spotting things that are undervalued, dusting them off, and selling them at the proper price. I know a hidden treasure when I see one. ~ Tessa Dare

We are called at certain moments to comfort people who are enduring some trauma. Many of us don't know how to react in such situations, but others do. In the first place, they just show up. They provide a ministry of presence. Next, they don't compare. The sensitive person understands that each person's ordeal is unique and should not be compared to anyone else's. Next, they do the practical things--making lunch, dusting the room, washing the towels. Finally, they don't try to minimize what is going on. They don't attempt to reassure with false, saccharine sentiments. They don't say that the pain is all for the best. They don't search for silver linings. They do what wise souls do in the presence of tragedy and trauma. They practice a passive activism. They don't bustle about trying to solve something that cannot be solved. The sensitive person grants the sufferer the dignity of her own process. She lets the sufferer define the meaning of what is going on. She just sits simply through the nights of pain and darkness, being practical, human, simple, and direct. ~ David Brooks

She didn't like gardening or cleaning, so she wasn't about to have 'shit that needed watering or dusting' around her place. ~ Jana Deleon

True, duels were fought by convention at dawn in isolated locations to ensure the privacy of the gentlemen involved. But were they fought behind ash heaps or in scrapyards? Of course not! They were fought in a clearing among the birch trees with a dusting of snow. Or on the banks of a winding rivulet. Or at the edge of a family estate where the breezes shake the blossoms from the trees. . . . That is, they were fought in settings that one might have expected to see in the second act of an opera. ~ Amor Towles

Jenks: I can't even pix anyone. I sweat now instead of dusting, did you know that? I've got water coming off me instead of dust. What the hell can I do with sweat? Rub up against someone and make them puke in disgust? I've seen you sweat, and it's not pretty. I don't even want to think about sex, two sweaty bodies pressed against each other like that? Disgusting. Talk about birth control - it's no wonder you only have a handful of kids. ~ Kim Harrison

Tallkit shivered. This was only his second sunrise outside the nursery, and his paws pricked with excitement. A light dusting of snow had turned the camp white, frosting the tussocky grass and thick heather walls. The freezing air stung his nose. He fluffed up his fur. ~ Erin Hunter

From a most kind suggestion put to me by Mr Farraday himself one afternoon almost a fortnight ago, when I had been dusting the portraits in the library. In fact, as I recall, I was up on the step-ladder dusting the portrait of Viscount Wetherby ~ Anonymous

Good morning, Meroe,' I said, dusting uselessly at my tracksuit pants. 'Might I interest you in today's special, pre-floured kitten? ~ Kerry Greenwood

The Four Establishments of Mindfulness are the foundation of our dwelling place. Without them, our house is abandoned; no one is sweeping, dusting or tidying up. Our body becomes unkempt, or feelings full of suffering, and our mind a heap of afflictions. When we are truly home, our body, mind, and feelings will be a refuge for ourselves and others. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I watch, nearly shaking with the need to say something and having nothing to say, as she lets a flame incinerate the precious paper to a dusting of ash on the floor. ~ Alaya Dawn Johnson

How come when you wipe up dust it's called dusting but when you wipe up a spill it's not called spilling? There's something to think about. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

The room smells of lemon oil, heavy cloth, fading daffodils, the leftover smells of cooking that have made their way from the kitchen or the dining room, and of Serena Joy's perfume: Lily of the Valley. Perfume is a luxury, she must have some private source. I breathe it in, thinking I should appreciate it. It's the scent of pre-pubescent girls, of the gifts young children used to give their mothers, for Mother's Day; the smell of white cotton socks and white cotton petticoats, of dusting powder, of the innocence of female flesh not yet given over to hairiness and blood. It makes me feel slightly ill, as it I'm in a closed car on a hot muggy day with an older woman wearing too much face powder. This is what the sitting room is like, despite its elegance. ~ Margaret Atwood

Those that spend the greater part of their time in reading or writing books are, of course, apt to take rather particular notice of accumulations of books when they come across them. They will not pass a stall, a shop, or even a bedroom-shelf without reading some title, and if they find themselves in an unfamiliar library, no host need trouble himself further about their entertainment. The putting of dispersed sets of volumes together, or the turning right way up of those which the dusting housemaid has left in an apoplectic condition, appeals to them as one of the lesser Works of Mercy. ~ M.R. James

It was colder that winter than I knew cold could be, even though the girl from Minnesota down the hall declared it "nothing." Out in Oregon, snow had been a gift, a two-day dusting earned by enduring months of gray, dripping sky. But the wind whipping up the Hudson from the city was so vehement that even my bone marrow froze. Every morning, I hunkered under my duvet, unsure of how I'd make it to my 9:00 a.m. Latin class. The clouds spilled endless white and Ev slept in. ~ Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Ever come home and found your room messed up? Like some helpful person (hi, Mom) has tried to "clean" it, and suddenly you can't find anything? And even if nothing is missing, you get that creepy feeling like somebody's been looking through your private stuff and dusting everything with lemon furniture polish? ~ Rick Riordan

The creature took one look at me screaming, got a panicked expression on its face, and started hollering too. "Aaaaahhhhhh!!!"

My scream petered out as I realized that this thing was as scared of me as I was of it. But that didn't make a whole lot of sense, since it was the creature, not me.

"What are you screaming for?" I asked.

"What are you screaming for?" he asked back.

"I asked you first."

The thing sniffed while dusting some imaginary lint off its jacket. "I was being polite."

"Polite?"

"Yes. I didn't want you to feel bad about being scared and screaming like a little human girl. ~ Elle Casey

This morning I woke up at four and lay awake for an hour or so in a bad state. It is raining again. I got up finally and went about the daily chores, waiting for the sense of doom to lift - and what did it was watering the house plants. Suddenly joy came back because I was fulfilling a simple need, a living one. Dusting never has this effect (and that may be why I am such a poor housekeeper!), but feeding the cats when they are hungry, giving Punch clean water, makes me suddenly feel calm and happy. Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way. ~ May Sarton

Arms wrapped around me, I looked over the past boxed up and piled haphazardly about, like memories in a person's brain. It was only a matter of knowing where a thought was and dusting it off. ~ Kim Harrison

I come from a visual background. I used to work in the camera department at Warner Bros. when I was a teenager. I grew up dusting lenses and learning about photography. ~ Colin Hanks

She looked up and caught Jared's eye. He had watched the whole exchange, and he looked amused by Mina's actions. He pointed down at the apple that had come to rest against his shoe, the apple she had smacked out of Savannah's hand. He laughed as he reached down and picked up the apple. Mina frowned. Dusting it off against his shirt, Jared took a bite out of it and chewed slowly, taunting her. ~ Chanda Hahn

The earth doesn't have a housekeeper to do the dusting. ~ Pablo Picasso

I just wanted to know what it was like," she said, "in case it was my last chance. I never wanted to take him away from you."

"You didn't. It's not like you tied him down and forced him." Sparrow paused, considering. "You didn't, did you?"

"Practically. But he didn't scream for help, so..."

Sparrow launched the plum. It was close range, and hit Ruby on her collarbone. She said, "Ow!" though it hadn't really hurt. Rubbing at the place of impact, she glared at Sparrow. "Is that it, then? Have you spent your wrath?"

"Yes," said Sparrow, dusting off her palms. "It was one-plum wrath."

"How sad for Feral. He was only worth one plum. Won't he mope when we tell him. ~ Laini Taylor

His lashes were long and thick, so dark they seemed charcoaled; she half expected them to leave a dusting of black powder on the tops of his cheek-bones when he blinked. ~ Cassandra Clare

Pride swelled my chest. Uncovered by the lack of makeup, the dusting of freckles on her nose made her adorable. Her body told you she was a dream to fuck, the confidence in her posture told you she'd take no shit from anyone, and the mischievous amusement in her eyes told you there would never be a dull moment. ~ Sylvia Day

I knew then that the fewer items I was acquiring, dusting, packing, moving, and lugging around in life would free up my energy and time to create... ~ Dorothy Breininger

..
Dusting off your books means dusting your mind off. ~ Yasser Kashef

Those who spend the greater part of their time in reading or writing books are, of course, apt to take rather particular notice of accumulations of books when they come across them. They will not pass a stall, a shop, or even a bedroom-shelf without reading some title, and if they find themselves in an unfamiliar library, no host need trouble himself further about their entertainment. The putting of dispersed sets of volumes together, or the turning right way up of those which the dusting housemaid has left in an apoplectic condition, appeals to them as one of the lesser Works of Mercy. Happy in these employments, and in occasionally opening an eighteenth-century octavo, to see 'what it is all about,' and to conclude after five minutes that it deserves the seclusion it now enjoys, I had reached the middle of a wet August afternoon at Betton Court ...
-the beginning of the story A Neighbor's Landmark ~ M.R. James

Our failures make us who we are; they build our character, we are defined by what we do with them, and how we respond to adversity. Without failure there is no growth, no striving for better, no adjusting, or dusting yourself off to try again. ~ J.W. Lord

I'm wishing very hard," she whispered.
"Are you, Lillian?"
"Yes," Lillian murmured, though she wasn't precisely hoping for Lord Westcliff to find true love. Her wish was more along the lines of, I hope that Lord Westcliff will meet a woman who will bring him to his knees. The thought caused a satisfied smile to curve her lips, and she continued to smile as Daisy tossed the sharp bit of metal into the well, where it sank into the endless depths below. Dusting her hands together, Daisy turned away from the well with satisfaction. "There, all done," she said, beaming. "I can hardly wait to see whom Westcliff ends up with."
"I pity the poor girl," Lillian replied, "whoever she is. ~ Lisa Kleypas

When people bury you in the sand, what they fail to realize is that the tides come in slowly but surely. When the tides come in slowly, start wiggling your way out, so by the time the huge tides arrive, you are already out and dusting the sand off. They never take the time to look back to see how you do it, they just think you drown. When they wonder why and how you made it, it's because they made you stronger. They also don't realize - there's always a solution to a problem."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

For just a moment, I thought about it. I pictured how it would be, dusting off the rusty Romance Lindsey, long hidden in some box in the back closet of my mind, under piles of more important boxes filled with Work Lindsey, and Mommy Lindsey, Divorce Court Lindsey, and now Shared Custody Lindsey, and Depressed Insane Lindsey.
Was Romance Lindsey even there anymore? Probably not. She had sat forgotten for so long that, like the Skin Horse and the Velveteen Rabbit, she had ceased to be real. I never even thought about her anymore. Until now. Which was a bad sign that the boxes were getting jumbled up and Control Freak Lindsey needed to get to work.
...
He grinned wickedly, and my stomach fluttered like a firecracker the instant the chain reaction starts inside the casing. Romance Lindsey and Tomboy Lindsey grabbed Mommy Lindsey, shoved her into a box, and sat down on the lid. Control Freak Lindsey ran away screaming. ~ Lisa Wingate

I begin to wonder how different "real" love is from my imaginary affair. In any relationship there's both reality and the perception of reality. As long as I see the other person as smart or sexy or handsome or good and as long as I can hang on to the feeling of loving and being loved then it's real. But somehow we're able to hang on to those feelings and beliefs even when objective reality diverges. Actions don't necessarily alter beliefs and beliefs matter more. Before you fall in love you begin to imagine the other person. You create your lover extrapolating on reality dusting him or her with gold. You embellish to the point of perfection and then fall hard for the image you've made. With all my traveling I may have spent more time imagining than others. But a huge amount of all love takes place in the head. In the middle of any relationship we can spend more time hour for hour thinking about the other person than we spend in his presence. And after any breakup there's no telling how long we might pine for someone. Love itself is in the mind's eye. ~ Elisabeth Eaves

There came a time when a person had to admit they were insane. Clara reached that point yesterday. Dusting ~ Janelle Daniels

Purple Hair stopped dusting blush over Cameron's cheeks. "Hold up. Are you talking about the dark-haired guy who came in with you? The one who searched me before I could do your makeup?" Cameron grimaced. "Sorry about that." "Don't be - it was the highlight of my month." Purple Hair threw her a get-real stare. "That's the guy you're holding out on? Sweetie, you need to grab that stallion and ride him like a cowgirl. ~ Julie James

It was just the lightest dusting, and another person might have mistaken it for something else. But I knew where I came from. No matter where I was, or what got me there, I would always feel at home when I touched sand. ~ Sarah Dessen

But I say, really, you know, I am an old friend of the family. Why, by Jove, now I remember, there's a photograph of me in the drawing-room. Well, I mean, that shows you!"
"If there is," said the policeman.
"I've never seen it," said the parlourmaid.
I absolutely hated this girl.
"You would have seen it if you had done your dusting more conscientiously," I said severely. And I meant it to sting, by Jove!
"It is not a parlourmaid's place to dust the drawing-room," she sniffed haughtily.
"No," I said bitterly. "It seems to be a parlourmaid's place to lurk about and hang about and - er - waste her time fooling about in the garden with policemen who ought to be busy about their duties elsewhere."
"It's a parlourmaid's place to open the front door to visitors. Them that don't come in through windows."
I perceived that I was getting the loser's end of the thing. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Returning home on the evening of his engagement he had bewildered Mrs. Tims by seizing her as she stood in front of the kitchen-stove, a frying-pan full of sausages in her hand, and waltzing her round the kitchen, frying-pan and all. Subsequently five of the six sausages had been recovered; but the sixth was not retrieved until the next morning when, in dusting, Mrs. Tims discovered it on the mantelpiece. ~ Herbert Jenkins

Seth had promised the demon he would heal him. Graulas had no other hope for aid. He might have lived an evil life, but the demon had helped Seth multiple times. Seth fingered the Translocator. Could this be a bad move? What if Graulas turned on him? Of course, even in his weakened state, the demon could have killed Seth upon any of his previous visits. If Seth healed him, Graulas would probably be more grateful than ever. Maybe the cunning demon could suggest strategies to stop the Sphinx, or provide insight about Nagi Luna. After a dusting from the Sands of Sanctity, the demon would still be old and dying, but curing the disease would reduce the pain and maybe buy Graulas a little extra time. And Seth would keep the Translocator handy. If all else failed, he could always teleport away. Seth ~ Brandon Mull

It cannot be right to be the slave of one's household gods, and I protest that if my furniture ever annoyed me by wanting to be dusted when I wanted to be doing something else, and there was no one to do the dusting for me, I would cast it all into the nearest bonfire and sit and warm my toes at the flames with great contentment, triumphantly selling my dusters to the very next pedlar who was weak enough to buy them. Parsons ~ Elizabeth Von Arnim

Let's get married,' he would say to her, through the hush of the hallway, his voice sounding like a dusting cloth on the first spring cleaning. ~ Solomon Deep

Damask roses and white picket fences,
a childhood ripe with an array of senses.
Forest black against starry skies,
Pink clouds dusting an early sunrise.
Hundreds of days slipping through hourglass years.
The sands of adolescence fading with solemn tears.
Oceans of certainty ebbing away,
Lessons learned regardless of one's place. ~ A.Y. Greyson

What did you do?' I whisper to Aithinne. Aithinne pushes to her feet, dusting off her clothes.'I redirected its blast away from us so it used its weapon on itself. ' She scans the destruction.'Easy.' 'Ah, yes,' I murmur, trying to quell the emotions that rush through me at seeing my childhood home destroyed. 'Simple's sibling, Easy. I don't even want to imagine the levels of chaos that would prompt visits from their cousins Straightforward and Uncomplicated. ~ Elizabeth May

With no sums to keep his conscience at bay, the black book loomed large, creeping into his line of sight.
He scanned the room for something else to do. The harness still needed work. And he'd been meaning to fix that rickety shelf since last month. The pipe on his potbellied stove was dented. The windowsill needed dusting.
Dusting?
J.T. braced his arms on the desk and pressed his forehead into the heels of his hands. ~ Karen Witemeyer

The aftertaste of New Year's Eve parties wears on me for the same reason I am not much for resolutions. Dusting off a stepper because we switched out our calendar is pointless. After all, society also conditions that most will whiff their resolutions by January 3rd, at which point one is to abandon the resolutions utterly and feel guilty as one devours a box of Christmas chocolates. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

Her face shimmered with a dusting of powder and rouge. She was wearing so many undergarments that it felt as though someone had draped a fifty-pound weight over her body.How did girls move in these things?Let alone dance?
As Anne-Marie drew the corset tighter around her torso, Luce gaped at her reflection. The wig made her look five years older.And she was sure she'd never had this much cleavage before. In any of her lives. ~ Lauren Kate

Why is it that when you wipe up dust its called dusting but when you wipe up a spill its not called spilling? Just something to think about. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

My eyes shot open in surprise as Ken's strong arms clamped around my waist, as his face-rough, thanks to a dusting of evening stubble-came to rest against my neck, and as my toes dangled at least six inches above the pavement. For possibly the first time in my life, I felt grounded, and my feet weren't even touching the ground. ~ B.B. Easton

I go back and research, say, every reference to the Gorgons, and I find what the classical writers said about them and it's so much richer than you might get in an average Greek mythology text. I feel like an archaeologist - I'm dusting off these things that people have not seen for thousands of years and bringing them into the modern world. ~ Rick Riordan

Well, that was fun," Grandpa said as he climbed to his feet. "Anyone dead?"
"Does my pride count?" Draulin asked, dusting herself off.
"I don't think so," Grandpa said. "I killed that years ago. Dif, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but shoving my grandson out of planes is usually my job. So next time, kindly refrain until I give the word."
"Sorry, sir," Dif said, looking abashed. ~ Brandon Sanderson

One boy, still aching from his battle the day before and newly educated in the mysteries of sex. One boy, now looking twelve instead of fourteen, his lashes dusting down thick upon his cheeks, the lids shuttering those extraordinary blue eyes; one boy with his hand loosely cupping a whore's breast, his hawk-scarred wrist lying tanned upon the counterpane. One boy in the final instants of his life's last good sleep, one boy who will shortly be in motion, who will be falling as a dislodged pebble falls on a steep and broken slope of scree; a falling pebble that strikes another, and another, and another, those pebbles striking yet more, until the whole slope is in motion and the earth shakes with the sound of the landslide. ~ Stephen King

You look drugged within an inch of your life," Neil said, "and when you're not medicated you're drinking and dusting. When they finally take your medicine away, who are you going to hurt, really?" Andrew laughed. "I'm remembering why I don't like you." "I'm surprised you forgot." "I didn't," Andrew said. "I just got distracted for a moment there. ~ Nora Sakavic